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India’s plague of pesticide poisoning: Why does the government not act to regulate pesticides better?

Last month about 40 farmers died and more than 700 were hospitalised in Maharashtra due to pesticide poisoning. Initial reports suggest that the deaths are due to monocrotophos: a highly toxic chemical been banned in more than 60 countries but allowed to be sold in our country. This is the same chemical that was responsible for the death of 23 children who consumed the toxic midday meal in Bihar in 2013. The chemical was completely banned by the US in 1991, because it killed huge populations of birds.

In India, the sale, dosage and usage of many of these pesticides is not very well regulated. According to official estimates, pesticide poisoning is directly responsible for the death of at least 10,000 people every year. These deaths are mostly of poor people, which are not reported or are under-reported.

The organic food movement has created some awareness of residual pesticides in agricultural produce because this also affects the wealthy and informed urban population. But the worst impact of pesticide exposure is on the health of rural folk – men, women and children.

It affects people who are directly involved in spraying these pesticides. Studies in rural Bihar have shown a higher incidence of breast cancer among women residing in the Gangetic plain as compared to the control group staying in urban areas. Children are also very adversely impacted by early exposure to pesticides. There is strong evidence that links early exposure of children to various developmental problems including impaired cognitive functions.

A study in Spain has found a direct link between exposure to pesticides or Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and prevalence of Type-2 diabetes in adults. In 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a UN supported body, declared that organophosphate insecticides such as tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion, diazinon and glyphosate are carcinogens.

In theory, the pesticide industry in India is regulated and farmers are meant to be educated on usage and dosage by trained agricultural extension agents. But in practice, the industry is a complex maze. The farmer is advised on sale, usage and dosage by his local shop selling agricultural equipment and clearly there is a conflict of interest there.

While the Central Insecticide Board and Registration Committee (CIBRC) registers pesticides for crops, FSSAI sets the maximum residue limit (MRL) of pesticides for the crops it has been registered for. In reality, since farmers buy whatever the local shopkeeper recommends, he may end up spraying cauliflower with chemical X. If this X has not been approved for spraying on cauliflower, there may not even be an MRL set by the government. The farmer sprays in whatever proportion the seller has told him which may be many times over the safety limit. All this pesticide laden food ends up on our tables.

To give you an example, the Supreme Court banned the production and sale of endosulfan all over the country in 2011. In 2014, there were reports of children dying after consuming litchis. These deaths were a mystery at the time, but later studies indicate the children may have pealed unwashed fruits with their mouth and endosulfan sprayed on these fruits may be responsible. This was three years after SC had already banned endosulfan!

One obvious question is why do we still allow manufacture of chemicals like monochrotophos? We allow sale of 93 chemicals that have been banned or restricted in most of the developed world and some even in neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh. There are at least 18 others that have been classified as extremely hazardous or very hazardous by WHO.

Government appointed Verma committee gave its recommendations in December 2015 but not much follow up has happened since then. Most developed countries review the impact of pesticides every five years but we have no such provision in our country.

If we don’t have the resources to conduct these reviews, then should we not learn from the experience of other countries and international bodies like WHO? What is it that makes our policymakers think that we should continue to manufacture these chemicals and continue to poison the people who are spraying as well as the ones who are eating the pesticide laden food?